British company ACWA Services has signed a licensing agreement with Canadian company Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies to offer nutrient recovery technology to UK water companies.

Under the ageement, ACWA will act as a UK delivery partner with responsibility for the design, installation and commissioning of all equipment and associated civils where required, with key components supplied under licence by Ostara.

Ostara will manage the sale and marketing of the Crystal Green fertiliser produced by the process.

Ostara’s Pearl process recovers phosphorus and nitrogen from wastewater streams at municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants, transforming them into a fertiliser.

Phosphorus forms as struvite in high strength wastewater streams and sludge liquors commonly associated with thermal hydrolysis and anaerobic digestion infrastructure and is currently controlled in UK wastewater treatment facilities with expensive chemical dosing.

This only temporarily relieves struvite problems and also generates solid waste requiring disposal. Left unchecked, this rock-like compound will rapidly scale pipes, tanks and equipment, leading to costly maintenance and plant downtime.

Peter Brewer, UK general manager for ACWA, said: “The ability to recover phosphorus: an essential and fast depleting natural resource required for increased global food production, while creating an additional revenue stream for our water industry customers, is particularly attractive. The annual savings in chemical dosing alone for some wastewater treatment plants could be in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.”